


so many things will fill my life (but only one will do)

by friendly_ficus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, I love Jester and I want her to be happy, They are Both So Cute, friends to penpals to lovers, just 2k words of fluff, my love of guest characters continues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 00:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14821772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: Jester and Calianna write to each other for years, as their lives and worlds shift around them. They always find a way back to each other.(Or: Love is inventing constellations.)





	so many things will fill my life (but only one will do)

  She keeps every single letter, tied up in bundles by her green ribbons. Jester’s clever drawings curl on the edges of the paper, and going through them makes Cali laugh even now. It’s been years since they started writing. Jester’s words are precious - platinum and gold and jewels are nice, but it isn’t the  _ same,  _ she doesn’t  _ need  _ them - and sometimes Calianna wonders if it’s the dragon blood heating her cheek when she thinks of Jester with her pretty smile and lovely voice and bright mind. (It isn’t, she knows; there’s none of the dark growly possession in this part of her life.)

  Cali keeps the pamphlet too; it’s all about the Traveler but every sweeping word echoes with Jester’s smile. She asked about it once in an early letter, and Jester replied with a story of herself bent over parchment with her paints in the first days of the Mighty Nein. She knows the strange deity is laughing at her clumsy acknowledgement - Cali spent too long praying to the Queen, too long being wrong to take up with a new god. She doesn’t pray to him, but she spares a thought in his direction once in a while, mostly about keeping Jester safe. Still, when she trips in the road Jester’s letter miraculously goes unstained. Inns end up having extra rooms, sometimes, for cheap. Nicer people meet her on the road sometimes, and she doesn’t get betrayed as often. 

_ I tell him about everyone, of course,  _ a letter four months into their correspondence reads,  _ he’s my best friend. I tell him about your letters. He likes when I’m happy, he says it makes me more creative. _

  So Cali pauses, sometimes, glancing back at doorways, expecting to see... something. She never does, but sometimes she hears a distant laugh.

\---

Letter One:

_ Dear Calianna, _

  It’s Jester, remember! From the Mighty Nein, your friend and penpal. We have been doing a  _ lot  _ of things since we saw you and some of the stuff has been very fun. Look, I drew Kiri peeking around that part! She is so cute. 

  Anyway, I just wanted to see how you are doing. Did you find any more of your bowls yet? Are you doing fun things too?

  I put a blue ribbon in this letter - I think it’s pretty, and I remember your nice green ribbons so I thought you would like this ribbon too.

_ Your good friend, _

_   Jester _

\---

  Cali’s letters are important, sweet things and Jester wants more of them all the time. She wants them like pastries, and rereads each one until she’s got it folded up in her heart next to the rare ones from her mom, right alongside the times she gets Caleb to smile or makes Yasha laugh.

  Yasha teaches her to press flowers and she sends them along in her replies, telling stories of where they came from. When she doesn’t send flowers, she tucks a ribbon in, or a pretty river stone, or an extra sketch. 

  She keeps the first letters short and safe, steering away from questions like “Did you also get so lonely that you could not think sometimes?” Eventually, though, those questions hit the pages too; six months into their letters there’s a string of multi-page messages scrawled in candlelight that they send to each other, comparing dolls they’d had and the weight their mutual isolations put on them.

  (These letters are hard to write, and Jester cries over them a little when she sends hers off. It’s nice though, to tell someone about this stuff. The Traveler knows it, of course, but it’s good to write it to another person too. Jester feels... lighter, after she sends these letters off.

  She cries when she reads Cali’s replies, different grief and anger stirring deep inside, but admires the fierce conviction her friend has. Calianna is determined to make right what she has done wrong, and her continued optimism buoys Jester, too.)

\---

Letter Fifty-Seven:

_ Dear Jester, _

  The run-in with the last group was rough, but I got the dagger. Nobody’s gonna get hurt by  _ that  _ thing ever again!

  People in the neighborhood are really happy about the cult being cleared out of here, too. Some people called me a hero the other day. You’re a hero, Jester, do you think I can be one too?

  They had a little dragon, a blue one. You would have thought it was so cute! And it was, before it attacked everybody. I put a couple scales in this letter, they reminded me of you. Maybe you can put them on a bracelet or something? You have such a nice style, so if these throw it off you could sell them or something.

  You’re coming to the coast! If it’s not out of the way, come and see me.

_ Your good friend, _

_   Cali _

\---

  They see each other in passing, for quick visits sometimes. Cali’s busy chasing the relics and being chased by the cult, while Jester’s embroiled in whatever mess the Mighty Nein gets up to, but they keep writing, keep looking for times to see each other. 

  There’s a fantastic stretch of two months when they’re in the same city. Jester takes Cali to theater shows and a carnival and Cali takes Jester to a place where the sun filters through colored glass walls of the greenhouses and the air smells like wildflowers. They blush and laugh and grab each others’ hands to tug themselves along, holding on moments after. They spend one afternoon in a fancy tea room that does five courses of tiny food, little cups of soup and delicate sandwiches, sweet little cakes packed with summer berries. It’s fancy and dainty and they use their funniest accents, loudly proclaiming outlandish rumors that are so ridiculous they’re sure to spread.

  The time ends, both of them called back to their missions, but something’s shifted between them, something’s right on the edge of clicking into place.

  Jester starts scenting her letters with a little of her precious lavender. Cali drops the “friend” part from her sign off, but keeps “Yours.”

\---

   Time passes for both of them, but the letters continue.

   Cali’s goals remain the same but the stakes keep rising around her, until she wants to roar at the world, wants to snarl louder than five chromatic heads can. Jester’s encouragement folds the sorcerer in armor, strengthens her will. 

   Nasturtiums tumbled out of the last envelope, with a note on how  _ you can eat this kind of flower, did you know? And also they mean victory in that book I found.  _ They smelled like lavender, like Jester, and remained a vibrant riot of orange and red and yellow. Cali glanced at them often, seated at the desk where she’s got maps and possible cult movements spread out. She has a garden on the walls of this room now, thanks to Jester, a wallpaper of flowers. Even flat against the parchment, they’re so bright.

\---

Letter Two Hundred Thirteen:

_ Dearest Jester, _

  I’m chasing it right now, but I know the amulet’s out there. There’s a rumor that a dragonborn has it. I’ll be careful, don’t worry.

  I heard a bard singing yesterday, and it was one of your adventures! The song sounded exciting. The bard said you exploded fifty skeletons, and everyone was very impressed. (You’re strong enough to take out a hundred, easily, but I didn’t want to interrupt the performance.)

  I’m going back out soon, this amulet is too important to ignore. I’m still saving people, but I’m not too worried about this whole world-ending thing. The Mighty Nein (and more impressively, Jester, beloved cleric of the Traveler) is on the case. Tell them I said hello. Stay safe, write me when you can.

_   Yours, _

_   Cali _

\---

  It all gets so complicated, is the thing, and technically Jester thinks that the world shouldn’t be going so crazy. Like, when the Traveler taught her how to bring people back to life, she really didn’t anticipate needing to do it so often. 

  It’s a lot, alright? She keeps healing, keeps fighting, keeps her friends close and her god closer but it all feels like it’s coming apart sometimes, okay? Like the whole world is fraying at the seams and Jester is very small again, watching things from a high window and relying on secondhand information. 

  The night before the Mighty Nein (a group of assholes who somehow went from a ragtag bunch of misfits to figures of legend) saves the world, Jester runs her hand over the familiar pink leather of her bag and smiles a smile for Pumat Sol, wherever he may be. And she reads her favorite letters, the ones she keeps tucked in the side pouch, and she thinks of Cali’s joy when they were outside, months ago, inventing constellations. She falls asleep with a quill in her hand, unsure what she even wants to say about everything in her journal.

  She wakes with ink smudged on her face in a joking pattern and laughs at her reflection. The Traveler always knows how to make her feel better. 

  When they win, Jester imagines Cali’s face - luxuriates in the joy her letter will bring.

\---

Letter Two Hundred Seventy-Seven

_ Cali, _

  We saved the world, I know, right?! I’ll write more about it when I have more time, we’re about to get back on the road.

  Are you maybe interested in coming to see me? I will be on the coast in two weeks and I want to see you.

  Write me back soon. I put a golden ribbon in this letter - it reminds me of your eye.

_ Love, _

_   Jester _

\---

  The reunion is perfect, because Jester easily deserves it and honestly Cali may be a little noble and righteous, but she’s alright despite that.

  The reunion is perfect because of a series of unrelated accidents and instances of good luck all around the city - the rude host of the restaurant has to recover from a bucket on his head, so a kind woman fills in that night. The struggling gardener found his plants so heavy with blooms that morning that he was giving them away to celebrate his good fortune. There is a bowl of gardenias on every table outside the fancy restaurant, and the warm breeze carries the scent through the air.

  (The trick in this scenario is that the reunion is perfect for none of these reasons. Oh, that’s not a trick? Are you questioning the great wisdom and mischief of the Traveler? Don’t be a fool.)

  Cali fidgets at the table and wonders if maybe Jester would have wanted to sit inside, plays nervously with the blue and gold ribbons in her hair. It’s dusk and the sky is lilac-colored and she’s nervous because she’s not sure if Jester means - Jester is so amazing that sometimes Cali’s not sure she realizes the baggage a tenth of a dragon can carry, and then she’s standing up because Jester’s there.

  And Cali forgets to be nervous because she’s too busy hugging Jester, inhaling the smell of her hair and feeling the tiefling breathe in her arms. Jester pulls away a little, just enough to put a hand on Cali’s chin.

  (Jester was nervous too, before this, pacing the fancy hotel room floor and changing outfits and hairstyles a few times. Nott kept reminding her that saving the world made them all big heroes, technically, so of course Jester was capable of getting the girl.

  Beau was more straightforward, less reliant on the stories that had once been Jester’s whole world, but no less encouraging. “Look,” the monk had said, “You’ve got a hundred letters from her saying that she’s yours. Go be doing that, you’re gonna wear a hole in the fancy carpet.”

  And really, that was that.)

  Hand tilting Cali’s chin gently, she pauses. “Okay?” asks Jester, abruptly a little bit shy.

  Blessedly, Cali smiles. And the kiss is soft and gentle because this is that kind of love, happy and enduring and  _ fun. _ They both giggle a little when they separate and see every candle on the street is burning softly with dragon fire.

  “I didn’t just want to say it in a letter, Jester,” and Cali pauses for a moment, looks right in Jester’s sweet, freckled face and speaks with sure truth, “but I think I am in love with you.”

  And Jester smiles and says in a conspiratorial tone, “You know, Ca-li-an-na, I think I love you too.”

  This time, when they kiss, Jester is the one who slips. When they separate to sit down, to eat and drink and talk and not be separated, she hears her god laugh in her ear. Looking up the street, Jester realizes she’s used Thaumaturgy - every window on the street has flown open, to the squawking shock of every bird perched on a windowsill.

  Her own bright laugh mixes with Cali’s softer one, drifting out into the warm night, rising up to the stars. 

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I just wanted something happy and gosh darn it I wrote it. I know how Thaumaturgy works, but that’s the pooower of love. And yeah, flower meanings are a cliche but I like them.  
> If you notice any big spelling or grammar mistakes let me know, I wrote this immediately after last night’s episode so I was exhausted. Fic title comes from “It Is You” by Natalie Prass, a song I adore that I only know because of the last Percy playlist from campaign one.  
> Let me know what you think! I love comments! It was really fun to just write something that made me happy :)


End file.
